We speak to Ahmed Benchemsi, advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, which has published a report on grave abuses committed on construction sites in Saudi Arabia. HRW said "scores of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia die in gruesome yet avoidable workplace-related accidents, including falling from buildings, electrocution, and even decapitation" and warned the risks could increase as the building of stadiums for the 2034 World Cup gathers pace.
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00:00This is Apropos, with scores of migrants have died in gruesome yet avoidable workplace-related
00:09accidents in Saudi Arabia as the government there ramps up construction work ahead of the
00:142034 World Cup. That's according to Human Rights Watch, which says those who've died
00:19have done so after falling from buildings, having been electrocuted, or in some cases
00:25even decapitated. After FIFA President Gianni Infantino paid a visit to Saudi Arabia, the
00:35host of the 2034 World Cup, an accusation that football's world governing body is failing
00:40to learn lessons from the past. A report published by Human Rights Watch has warned of a surge
00:46of deaths of migrant construction workers in the Gulf country as it prepares to host one
00:51of the world's biggest sports competitions. Workers have fallen from heights, been electrocuted
00:57and even crushed or decapitated by heavy machinery, according to the NGO. Heat-related illnesses
01:03are also a major concern. The report says many deaths are wrongly classified as having occurred
01:10due to natural causes, and that the families of workers are not compensated. In interviews
01:15with the families of 31 workers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal, many recount the struggle they
01:21face to repatriate the bodies of their loved ones. Initially, the people from the company
01:26proposed to bury my husband's body in Saudi Arabia and assured us of various company facilities
01:33in return. But when we wanted to bring my husband's body to Bangladesh and bury him here,
01:38the company said that we will have to bear all the expenses of bringing the body. Human Rights
01:44Watch is calling on Saudi authorities to ensure basic safety protections for the country's
01:49huge migrant workforce, which is now rushing to build 11 new stadiums, a rail and transit
01:55network and 185,000 hotel rooms in time for 2034. Saudi authorities are yet to comment.
02:03The oil-rich Gulf nation was handed the right to host the World Cup in December, despite concerns
02:09for its human rights record, conditions for migrant laborers and criminalization of same-sex relationships.
02:16The same concerns were raised ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. While difficult to estimate,
02:21it's believed that more than 6,500 migrant workers died in the build-up to the tournament,
02:27though Doha said it recorded only 37 migrant worker deaths during that period.
02:33For more, we're joined now in studio by Ahmed Ben Shamsi. He's Advocacy Director for the Middle East
02:38and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. Thanks so much for coming in to us this evening. We do
02:43appreciate you coming into studio. Firstly, before we talk about what can be done about all of this,
02:48tell us a little bit more about what your investigation uncovered and the reaction perhaps,
02:53if there has been any, from Saudi authorities. Well, I mean, it's been more than a decade that we have
02:59been documenting the various forms of abuse that migrant workers are subjected to in Saudi Arabia,
03:05coming mostly from Southern Asia, talking like countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India.
03:11This report specifically focuses on the deaths of migrant workers, because we have documented,
03:18you know, several deaths in the workplace that were classified as natural, even though obviously
03:25they were not. I mean, we have testimonies of workers who have been electrocuted, who fell from
03:29heights in construction sites, who also were decapitated by heavy machinery. I mean, these are
03:34really gruesome deaths. And there are several, several testimonies that such deaths, even though they are
03:41obviously linked to conditions of work, poor conditions at that, are classified as natural.
03:45The problem when you classify a death as natural officially, I mean, in the official registries,
03:50is that there is no investigation on the circumstances of that debt. Also, the families of the deceased
03:55cannot claim compensation. And they, of course, deserve compensation. That is their right, but they
04:00don't get it. Even in cases where the debts have been properly referenced as debt on the workplace,
04:08and compensation is due and recognized as such by the employer, it takes forever to get it. The
04:13processes are very long, very complicated. We had testimonies of families who had to fight as long as 10
04:19years, up to 15 years in one case, to get what they rightfully deserve after the death of their loved
04:25ones. This is a very, very serious situation. And they're dealing with that on top of, of course,
04:30going through the tragedy of losing somebody, a loved one who's been working in a foreign country.
04:35Tell us some more as well about the actual law. Like, what are Saudi authorities obliged to actually do
04:41under current legislation? Well, Saudi authorities, Saudi laws, oblige every company that employs more
04:48than 50 people to take a whole set of measures to ensure protection of workers on their work sites,
04:55to ensure, you know, social security and things like that. But when we see, when we look on the
05:02ground, also to protect them against extreme heat, because that is a recurrent problem, not only in
05:08Saudi, but also in other Gulf countries. But when we look on the ground, when we investigate, we see that
05:12the measures that are effectively taken are grossly inadequate. They are nearly, not nearly enough,
05:18because deaths continues. And this is going even further now, because the World Cup 2034 is coming
05:26up, which means more construction sites, which means more projects. I mean, there's plenty of mega
05:31projects in Saudi Arabia that employ scores, and we're talking thousands of hundreds of migrant workers.
05:38But it's going to be even more and more in the lead up to the World Cup. In the case that no
05:46serious measures are taken to prevent such gruesome deaths, and to also ensure and guarantee that
05:52families will get retribution, we will only continue witnessing more and more tragedies. This is the
05:58alarm bell that we're ringing in this report that we published today. And there were similar tragedies.
06:02We heard many of the same kind of stories back when Qatar was given the World Cup back in 2022. It was
06:09accused of exploiting workers, abusing people there. What was actually done about that, Ahmed? Have any of
06:15those lessons been learned? We wish those lessons have been learned, because we have also rang the
06:21alarm bell before, during and after the Qatar World Cup, saying that there were various forms of abuse that
06:28migrant workers were subjected to. And we were talking to the same party, which is FIFA. You
06:32know, it's FIFA that granted the World Cup to Qatar. It's FIFA that equally grants the World Cup to
06:36Saudi Arabia. Well, we sent a letter to FIFA, asking FIFA to not only draw lessons from what happened in
06:41Qatar, but to realize that this might be even worse, because the numbers are bigger. Well, FIFA answered
06:46us. And like the Saudi authorities, who did not answer that, but FIFA did answer us. They sent us a letter
06:51promising that they will work on a general policy to ensure, you know, more guarantees and more care in
06:58general for the workers. The problem is, this looked like, you know, lip service, because it was very
07:04vague. There was nothing concrete and specific and precise in it. Will they, for example, push Saudi
07:10authorities to enforce mandatory life insurance policies for workers? These are the time, the type of
07:17specific measures that we're pushing to. I mean, it's easy to just, you know, give lip service and
07:23say that you care about people. But the devil is in the details. As you know, as the proverb goes,
07:28we should really focus on the details and on specific and effective policies. And what kind
07:33of due diligence is FIFA actually obliged to carry out ahead of awarding these tournaments to countries
07:38such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia? It is supposed to guarantee that human rights are enforced and not
07:44just in terms of, you know, migrant workers and safety measures and all concerns migrant workers.
07:49It's also the laws of Saudi Arabia and the general context of Saudi Arabia. I mean, there are human
07:53rights policies among FIFA's policies. But I mean, we've seen that they haven't been enforced the way
07:59they should have been in Qatar. And it looks like they're going the same path again in Saudi Arabia.
08:03I mean, it's 2034. So it's nine years ahead of now. We're already ringing the alarm and we'll keep
08:10going. And it's not just us. It's a whole environment of international NGOs that are doing the same
08:16work. By the way, this report that we have published today has been published concomitantly
08:20with another report by another very brave organization called Fair Square that also documented the plight of
08:26migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and got to the same conclusions as us, that there are scores of
08:32debt of migrant workers on the workplace that go uninvestigated. And in the end, there's no justice that
08:38is rendered. And apart from ringing the alarm bell, as you say, you have been doing and you will
08:42continue to do for the next nine years, what can actually be done to protect these migrant workers?
08:47I mean, effective policies, what can be done? Saudi Arabia has to take measures.
08:52There is, there is, I mean, there could be lawsuits as well. I mean, there is a lawsuit
08:56between the international labor organization and I think Saudi Arabia, that's right, that is still ongoing
09:02on another form of abuse of workers. So there are some rules that can be taken in terms of
09:07international processes. As far as we are concerned, our job is to document violations, to expose them
09:13and to advocate with international organizations, namely and chiefly here, FIFA, to keep applying
09:19pressure on Saudi Arabia, because there is a risk of image association that is very bad for FIFA.
09:24And is there any pressure actually being applied on Saudi Arabia? We see this week the world's most
09:30powerful man visiting Saudi Arabia, also Qatar today, Donald Trump there making business deals
09:36in these countries. What kind of pressure needs to be applied?
09:39I mean, continuous pressure needs to be applied. I wish we had a magic wand and we could, by
09:44mere dint of pressure coming from human rights organizations, just, you know, fix the problems
09:49of the world. Unfortunately, that's not how it works, but we need to keep the pressure going. We need to,
09:54you know, this is what we call the watchdogs because we watch consistently the evils of the world
10:01as they are unfolding and we are, you know, putting, shedding lights on whatever is going
10:06wrong and saying, hey, this is, this needs to be fixed. This needs to be fixed. They are international
10:10media. Thank you for inviting me here tonight because you are contributing to this pressure.
10:14And the fight goes on.
10:15And what is actually luring these migrant workers to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the
10:21first place? And what can be done perhaps to better educate people about what might await them if they
10:27do go to work on these kinds of projects? What lures them, it's the same thing that lures any migrant
10:33worker in the world. It's the promise of a decent salary. It's the promise to send money back home,
10:38to send children to school, to care for their loved ones. So it's, it's basic human dignity. That's,
10:44that's why, that's why emigration exists all throughout the world. And the migrants to the Gulf are no
10:49exception. However, the conditions in the Gulf are different from the conditions in many other
10:54regions of the world. And we have documented countless types of abuses. One of them is that
10:59many, many workers in their countries of origin sign a contract or sign a letter of engagement,
11:05I'm not sure how it's called, specifying that they will get this type of job and this salary once they
11:10set foot in Saudi Arabia or in Qatar. And once they get there, they find out that it's a completely
11:14different job, that it's a salary that is way less than that, but there are very little ways
11:19to remedy that. So this is, this is one of the abuses that we have documented in the past.
11:26Salary theft, there are, there are many of them. I mean, if your viewers are interested,
11:30you just have to go into hrw.org and there are many reports that document the various forms
11:34of abuses. So we have been also advocating with the countries of origin to educate their populations
11:41to know what's happening. It's a long-term process. Thank you so much for coming in to us and
11:46explaining it to us, Ahmed. Unfortunately, we'll have to leave it there for now. That's Ahmed Ben
11:52Shemsi, Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. Thanks so much.
11:58Thanks for having me.